It always happens at parties. There you are, extolling the virtues of your British-built Spectrum, BBC, Oric or whatever, when up comes some twerp clutching a gin and tonic who then grabs all the attention by announcing the death of the British computer industry.

Our native hardware manufacturers, he says, are about to turn tail and flee like lemmings in the face of the Great Oriental Invasion. What can you do? Thrust his gin and tonic down his throat, or agree with everything he says?

If, like me, you'd just spent two weeks playing with the Spectravideo, you'd find yourself agreeing with everything he says. It's not just that the Spectravideo's a good machine; it's an excellent one, and must be considered a serious contender in the sub-£200 home market.

Indeed, with a built-in joystick and excellent graphic facilities. the Spectravideo looks tailor-made for games players.

The trouble is, the machine's useless unless there is a good supply of software either currently available or on the horizon. To put it bluntly, if you buy a Spectravideo today, will you be kicking yourself in six months time?

A quick 'phone round the country's major software houses indicates a good deal of interest in the Spectravideo, with many programmers waxing lyrical about the machine and what they hope to do with it.

Of course, if it doesn't sell then no-one will touch it. But potential buyers can take comfort from the fact that the machine is already a big hit in America, that production lines in Hong Kong are rolling with customary oriental efficiency, and that a new company has just been formed in this country to handle distribution.

There are already 20 titles available on cartridge and cassette, and negotiations are underway to commission further programs. An adaptor can be bought to run Colecovision games and the MSX standard could well attract a broad software base over the next couple of years.

The machine comes in a secure package, complete with user manual, power supply, tutorial cassette, modulator to provide output to a TV, and all necessary leads. One nice touch is the inclusion of an aerial splitter so that you can leave your TV antenna plugged in along with the computer, and select either at the flick of a switch.

Once switched on, the system throws a Spectravideo logo on to the screen and adds some scrolling colour effects in an attempt to impress you with its virtuoso display.

Having introduced itself, the machine then clears the screen and dumps you in Basic command mode with a bright blue background and white text, a copyright message and a rather ominous statement to the effect that you have only just under 13K of memory free for Basic programming.

For a 32K machine, this comes as something of a disappointment. 16K is taken by the display and although the accompanying literature claims that a remaining 16K is user-available, this is a little optimistic. A RAM upgrade is however already in the shops.

At this point the first-time user will pick up the manual and start stabbing at a few keys in an effort to find out what he can do with his 13K. He's in for a couple of surprises...

The first surprise is the keyboard. Despite the poor reputation attached to rubber keyboards, the Spectravideo's is pleasantly responsive and reliable in operation. The layout is well thoughtout, and there are five easily redefined function keys, each with a second definition accessible using the Shift key.

The current definitions of these keys are flagged at the bottom of the screen. If you're used to a Spectrum or an Oric, for example, you'll find entering Basic programs on the Spectravideo far more attractive.

The cursor joystick is a very useful addition, both for games playing and for editing program lines. All the keys have an auto-repeat facility.

The second surprise for the first-time user is not such a pleasant one. The manual supplied with the SV-318 is excellently laid-out, in a sturdy ringbinder.

It inspires confidence by its appearance but the contents can only he called a disaster.

If you are unfamiliar with Basic, you will be even more unfamiliar with it once you've read the manual. Sample programs are listed with missing lines: there are frequent misprints, some of them seriously misleading and, last and most importantly, the manual gives a totally inadequate explanation of the features of Spectravideo Basic.

The manuals have apparently been rewritten, but you should check that this is the case before you buy.

The poor standard of the documentation is all the more deplorable in view of the excellent version of Basic available on the machine. The Spectravideo has a tried and tested hardware configuration that gives the programmer easy access to excellent sound and graphics. So some exciting games could be on the way.

With a machine like the Commodore 64, the hardware is let down by the limited Basic commands available and you have to spend a lot of time PEEK-ing and POKE-ing about in the memory to achieve the desired effects.

In addition, there are a number of special functions for integer conversion, I/O, and for calling m/code sub-routines.

Not so with the Spectravideo. Thirty-two sprites and sound channels await your Basic command.

The machine operates in two screen modes: Text and 256 x 192 Hi-res. Text and graphics cannot unfortunately be mixed on screen, but the excellent graphics facilities more than make up for this.

In addition to comprehensive drawing commands, the machine offers a 'Graphics macro language' which is in effect a Logo-like turtle graphics system.

Using the commands Up, Down, Left and Right you can store geometric shapes as strings and then draw them at will. A scaling factor can be introduced, so the figures can be shrunk or enlarged.

This is a powerful facility, one use of which could be to create simple 3D displays direct from Basic.

Many machines on the market offer a sprite facility, but the Spectravideo gives you 32 of them. Sprites are graphics shapes, 8 x 16 or 16 x 16 pixels in size, that once defined (as a space invader, for example) can then easily be moved about the screen, appearing in any colour, shape, or position that you tell them to.

There is also a comprehensive CIRCLE command that draws circles (rather flat ones), arcs and ellipses. Rectangles can be drawn simply by defining two points for the opposing corners and adding the letter B for box.

Any geometric shape can be mixed with colour, and any area for the screen PAINTed. The FILL and PAINT commands execute with satisfying rapidity. Putting all these facilities together gives you almost unparalleled control of the display, and all this without a single PEEK or POKE.

You don't have to spend your time drawing pretty pictures, though. You can have three-channel sound as well. The Spectravideo uses the TV loudspeaker and impressive sounds can easily be obtained.

You can get the machine to play a note just by typing in a C, a B-flat or an F-sharp and it will oblige in any one of eight octaves.

The 'Music macro language' allows tunes to be defined as strings. Special sound effects can be achieved by altering the waveform and frequency. Tempo, volume, rest periods, and pitch can all be varied using single letter commands.

Fans of the so-called 'structured' versions of Basic will lament the absence of definable procedures and commands such as REPEAT-UNTIL or WHILE-WEND.

However, as compensation, some excellent interrupt commands have been provided, including facilities for detecting sprite collisions and for branching to specific sub-routines following errors or the use of the function keys.

Compared to most cheaper machines, the Basic on the Spectravideo executes rapidly, and the PRINT routines can fill the screen fast enough for all but the most demanding user.

The only point worth making here is that the Spectravideo works to an unusually high degree of mathematical accuracy, and therefore some of the maths functions are rather slow.

Without the ability to SAVE and LOAD programs, your computer will be nothing but an expensive toy. Most home computers, with the notable exception of the Commodore models, allow you to use ordinary cassette players for this essential task.

But with the Spectravideo, you wil have to buy the SV-903 cassette unit. Loading and saving with the dedicated unit is very reliable and, at 1800 baud, acceptably fast. Useful features include an audio channel that plays back via the TV speaker and is completely separate from the data channel.

You could therefore put verbal labels, reminders, or instructions on your program tapes without disturbing the programs themselves.

The Basic supports a number of useful tape handling routines, including MERGEX and the ability to save programs as ASCII files. The cassette motor can also be controlled from Basic, and the audio channel switched in or out.

In conclusion, and with severe reservations about the manual, I can only say that the machine can do wonders for Basic programmer and games player alike.

The price is perhaps on the high side, but nevertheless this machine deserves a large share of the market.

The following prices do not include VAT, and may be subject to fluctuation according to currency exchange rates.

There are three joysticks currently available, ranging from £9.95 to £25.65. Contact: Spectravideo Ltd., 165 Garth Road, Morden, Surrey. Tel (01) 330-0101

When it first appeared in this country, the Spectravideo was hailed as being an 'MSX standard' machine. MSX is a software/hardware standard originality developed by Microsoft in the hope of providing a foundation for future software compatibility between different machines. It has since been adopted by Sony, Hitachi and Sanyo among others.

In fact the Spectravideo is not a true MSX machine, since the cartridge port is slightly too small. However Spectravideo have an adapter in production that will make the SV-318 100% MSX compatible. Whether MSX will count for much in the British market remains to be seen, but for the games player any degree of software compatibility can only be seen as an advantage.